Following President Biden’s speech announcing new COVID mandates, 63% of Registered Voters feel Very Motivated to cast a ballot in next year’s midterm elections. That’s up five points from a Scott Rasmussen national survey conducted in late August.
The increased enthusiasm was found across the board.
- Voters who prefer policies like those of former President Trump continue to have the highest level of motivation. Seventy percent (75%) of these populist voters are Very Motivated, up five points from the previous survey.
- Among the smaller number who prefer traditional Republican policies, 56% are now Very Motivated, up six.
- Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those who prefer policies like those of Senator Bernie Sanders, up seven.
- Sixty-six percent (66%) of those who prefer traditional Democratic candidates are now Very Motivated, up five.
Overall, 72% of Republicans are Very Motivated along with 69% of Democrats.
However, among independent voters, 77% of those who lean Republican are Very Motivated to cast a ballot in the midterms. Just 57% of those who lean towards the Democrats are that enthusiastic.
The survey was conducted on the Friday and Saturday following the president’s speech. It will be interesting to see if the new level of interest is just a temporary blip or a lasting change.
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Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left more than seven years ago and has had no involvement since that time.
Methodology
The survey of 1,200 Registered Voters was conducted by Scott Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from September 10-11, 2021. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Most respondents were contacted online or via text while 239 were contacted using automated phone polling techniques. Online respondents were selected from a list of Registered Voters and through a process of Random Digital Engagement. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of Registered Voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 2.8 percentage points.
